Discover the history of sepsis with Jean-Marc Cavaillon, Honorary Professor at the Institut Pasteur.
Once Upon a Time: Sepsis, from Lucrezia Borgia to Louis Pasteur
Lucrezia Borgia is among the many famous historical figures who died of sepsis. More precisely, she succumbed to puerperal fever, a term introduced in 1718 by Edward Strother. As early as the 18th century, some physicians began to question the contagious nature of this disease. Among them, Alexander Gordon stood out by acknowledging that he had personally transmitted the infection to his patients.
In 1857, Ignaz Semmelweis provided a decisive demonstration: puerperal fever was spread by the hands of medical students. This discovery highlighted the essential role of hygiene in preventing septicemia. Florence Nightingale would also contribute significantly to gaining recognition for the importance of hygienic measures in patient care.
Until the mid-19th century, the miasma theory remained dominant. It was gradually challenged when two physicians from Strasbourg, Victor Feltz and Léon Coze, observed the presence of deadly bacteria in their patients' blood. Ten years later, Louis Pasteur confirmed these observations.
Septicemia did not only affect women; men also died from it, particularly wounded soldiers on battlefields. Once transported to the hospital, they frequently succumbed to nosocomial infections, known at the time as hospital gangrene, hospital fever, or putrid fever. In fact, the term "septicemia" was proposed in 1837 by Pierre Piorry. Alexandre François Ollivier went so far as to demonstrate the contagious nature of the disease on himself.
Armand Trousseau was the first to establish a link between puerperal fever and the fever of the wounded, recognizing them as the same pathological mechanism. Drawing on Pasteur’s work, Joseph Lister subsequently developed the principles of antiseptic surgery, preventing many amputee patients from dying of septicemia.
A new chapter then opened with the identification of bacterial toxins. One of them, the endotoxin—a term introduced by Richard Pfeiffer—was gradually recognized as a major driver of the disease and would be biochemically characterized by Lydia Mesrobeanu and André Boivin.
Biography: Professor Jean-Marc Cavaillon
Jean-Marc Cavaillon is an Honorary Professor at the Institut Pasteur, where he spent his entire career following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto (Canada). He has served as the Director of both the "Cytokines & Inflammation" research unit and the "Infection and Epidemiology" department. Furthermore, he is the former President of the International Endotoxin and Innate Immunity Society as well as the European Shock Society, and has held the position of Associate Editor for the scientific journals Cytokine and Shock.
His research focuses on inflammation, sepsis, and innate immunity, with a particular emphasis on cytokines, macrophages, and bacterial endotoxins. He has been deeply involved in translational research, studying the immune status of patients suffering from sepsis and other severe inflammatory conditions.
Professor Cavaillon has authored 171 scientific papers, 133 review articles, and four books, including Inflammation - From molecular and cellular mechanisms to the clinic (co-authored with Pr. Mervyn Singer), as well as two French-language books dedicated to the history of science: La flamme salvatrice, Il était une fois l’inflammation and Le mauvais air.